Holy Moments

Sitting in a dark hotel room for over a day with nothing meaningful to do, trapped by pouring rain in an entirely new country with only all of me for company, doesn’t seem to agree with me. An overwhelmingly unreal feeling. Like I’m in another skin, by myself, in my shoes, but entirely unrecognisable. Maybe it’s the movie I’m watching. Or the silence. Or that unshakeable feeling that I’m not really awake. Like I’m sleepwalking through these strange, alien moments.

You would expect change to become familiar after a while, after moments and moments of relentless change -- days, weeks, months, people, language, the view from your window, the way you spend your waking hours, the tumult of thoughts and feelings swirling in your head, your experience of things, the way your head feels between your palms, the amount of white sprinkled in your hair, the shape of your face, the look in your eyes. You’d imagine you’d stop feeling so… uncomfortably different. You’d think it’d all make more sense as time goes by.

Maybe it’s just transition that I struggle with. It takes a while for things to settle down, to be daubed with the slightest tinge of familiarity. But isn’t that process change as well? Does change really ever stop? Or does it just blend into recognition? And what defines the boundaries of these segments of recognition? At what point does transience morph into habit? Does it ever get easier? Would it be a life less worth living if it were easier?

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There’s a well-known, much-recycled opinion, a pervasive theme about dreams that I think I’m only just starting to completely comprehend, to consciously assimilate. The one that contends that every single thing we dream about while we’re asleep has to have originated from our own minds. Everything we ‘know’ in a dream, every absurd idea, every ludicrous action, every horrific dream-monster, exists in each of our heads, somewhere, even if just as tiny seeds. Every stranger’s face in every unfamiliar place is one you’ve seen before, felt before, thought of before, have known of, in entirety, or in entirely unrelated bits and pieces randomly glued together. And they are as real and as much a part of our consciousness as multiplication tables, or memories of faces, or lyrics to favourite songs. Yet, somehow, by some inscrutable filtering process, they’ve been imprisoned, confined, tied up, and exiled to the dark corners of our minds, forming the pillars of an alternate consciousness, one that bides its time until the rigours of surviving the day have finally enervated the ‘conscious’ mind and body and plunged both into this alternate reality.

Even as I write this, I know that I’m incapable of saying exactly what it is I want to say, of lucidly defining every single intangible smudge in my head. The inevitable failure – Thoughts, always, lost in translation.

Mad World

On my way to the airport, with frayed nerves, a scrambled mind, and a steadily growing feeling of unease, I stared out into the black distance from my cab window. Even the gorgeous night couldn’t wipe clean the glazed expression, churning thoughts, iron out the furrowed brow, and numb that dull ache. Eagerness and optimism thwarted by wistfulness and regret. And chains, rabbit-holes, faces, expressions, words, the faintest, guarded whiff of emotion. All mixed up. All over again.

Was witness to a small car accident en route. At a traffic light about five minutes away from the airport, at an intersection, a car in front brakes suddenly to avoid running a red light, and the one behind, caught unawares, slams right into it. Car #2 pays the price, the front end scrunched like a crumpled sheet of paper. Out steps Driver #2, a dishevelled looking middle-aged man with straggly, shoulder length hair steps out and hollers incoherently. And then does the strangest thing. If I’d known better, I would’ve said he was headbanging! A straggly-haired man, doubling over and yelling, over and over again. He didn’t appear to be injured; he walked around a bit, hollered, waved his arms in the air, and… er… ‘headbanged’. Over and over again. Yet, it isn’t the most likely thing in the world that music appreciation was what was on his mind, out there in the middle a busy road, in the cold, with a scrunchy car to contend with. I can only imagine that he was either a) drunk, b) distraught, c) furious, d) stoned, e) losing his mind. Admittedly, no stranger to the morbid fascination that fills bystanders at the scene of a ‘crime’, I was tempted to hover around and watch the drama that would most likely ensue. However, there were planes to catch and duties to follow. I sighed, shook my head with just the appropriate amount of commiseration, and left. Cursed the soulless life that didn’t give me the time to stop and smell the roses. And participate in noble activities like gawking at streetside headbangers.

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Balikpapan, Indonesia appears to be almost exactly like any medium-sized Indian town, if the ride from the airport to the hotel is anything to go by. Even that tangible balminess in the air feels so familiar! Little grocery and convenience stores sprinkled all around, all devoid of neon signs, the numerous two-wheelers, tiny tea-stalls decked with potato-chip-packet-streamers, brash election posters smeared in the ugliest manner possible, dust, and honking cars. If only I could read Bahasa Indonesia, I’d say I was home.

There's Treasure Everywhere

Sometimes, truly.

And Now

Days just go by. Roll by. Day after day. Relentlessly chugging. After a while, you just stop noticing anything. Boredom cloaked in routine, cloaked in habit, loses its sting. And I can't imagine a scarier thing. Failing to notice boredom because it's become so... familiar.

And this is what they all warn you about. Them with the trophies of grey heads, sad wrinkles, potbellies, healthy bank balances, shrivelled dreams, and dead eyes. And I bet you smirked and scoffed at the idea that it could happen to you too.

The Old Story

La Ritournelle

Black...

... and Blue

Ice

The movie Fargo has the most breathtaking photography. Photography, as against cinematography, because that's just how certain scenes unravel. Random, startling, stunning snapshots of moments, frozen in time, right out of nowhere. Stark, frozen, pristine, bleached, desolate landscapes, snowed in, drowned, caked in white, and silhouettes, and breath, and smoke, and watery eyes.

If that isn't enough, the rest of the movie should be worth at least some of your time. A very strange story, even odder accents, the icy, unapologetic black humour -- the kind that makes you laugh cruelly, wallowing in the comfort of solitude, free from judgment. Or because of (or in spite of, perhaps??) Best Actress and Screenplay Academy Awards. Whatever works for you.

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Can fresh air and a frail, terrifyingly, achingly tantalising dream in your head keep you alive?

A thought, an idea that isn't mine to take pride in, to coddle, to derive purpose from, and yet I do, with uninhibited optimism, an utterly alien lack of cynicism, and inexplicable naiveté. I'm struggling to make sense of this absurdity, this aberration in my belief-system (or lack, thereof), this brazen contradiction of attitude. Mine, that is. Yes, I'm shamelessly self-involved.

The point being, the mere idea of the possibility a big picture down the road, the faintest whiff of arriving somewhere lifts the fog a little bit. Hope may just be an obese illusion, an upper, but I'm honestly past caring. Hell knows I need some escapism right now.

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Imitation/inspiration/influence/(insert suitable euphemism) may be the best form of flattery, but, like the elephant in the room, once pointed out, once acknowledged, reduces you to nothingness. Clinically peels off those layers, strips you bare, and painfully, painstakingly, coldly crushes you into pulp, that elephant's foot.

"I'm not normal"

This will keep me going the entire day, I just know it. I've truly never loved insanity more! I'm so blabberingly grateful, I want to hug something.
*eyeing backpack*

The Beginning Is The End Is Beginning

I gave in today. Stuck my head out of the shadows, just long enough to brave, for the first time, what this June had in store. The sheer terror of it all! Frigid coldness, unforgiving sunlight, muddy rain, frosty wind, distracted, disgraced, disenchanted autumn leaves?

But instead, dew. Gentle, mellow, quiet dew. Dew on my cheeks and warmth within. Hesitantly affirming dew, distilling my courage, quenching my questions, inundating me with unsettling serenity.

I'll admit, it'll take me a while to slink back into the shadows and attempt to forget I ever knew that this foray was noticed, silently observed.

Spin

Star Mile
by Joshua Radin

Old doubt and a girl by your side
She’s feeding your pride
As you go for a ride
Down the Star Mile

Worlds arise as she lets you come in
A duo begins
To the Hollywood Inn
Of the lonely

And all the gold dust in her eyes won't reform into a ring
You had and lost the one thing
You kept in a safe place
Remember the face
Of the girl who had made you her own
And how you left her alone

All’s well at the base of the hill
You might need to fill
A prescription to kill
Off the silence.

Look down from your tower on high
And take in the night
Look her right in the eye
She’ll listen

And all the gold dust in her eyes won't reform into a ring
You had and lost the one thing
You kept in a safe place
Remember the face
Of the girl who had made you her own
And how you left her alone

Life goes to those that are true
The regular news
Over playing the blues
With the light on

And if you burn the road
That’ll lead you back to her in time
I watch you turn to stone
You can’t find the sunlight

She’s moving on without you
The tide breaks
You watch the stars fade
They gather you back to their home
I guess it’s better than being alone

Oblivion

Memory is impossible to decipher. Read through my post earlier today, and couldn't for the life of me recollect who the "new mentor" that I dreamed about last night was/is. Thought and thought. Scratched my head, wrinkled my forehead, kneaded my cheeks, and contorted my face into grotesquely comical expressions. Racked my brains and desperately clawed at my stubbornly mute mind, and ultimately gave up. Some things, so fragile, so transient, once misplaced, are lost forever.

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The Perth Zoo, as with most things in this city, is, I regret to confess, dull as mud. The Orang-utan's expression sums it up, really.

This last pic below was what caught my fancy the most, however, in a zoo bursting with vain attempts at exoticness. Hundreds of names etched into the tight, firm, brooding green trunks. White on green. Futile attempts at scratching out the inevitable anonymity of life. I couldn't decide if this made me depressed, scornful, or merely bemused. I think I'll choose bemusement. It's wonderfully vague, impersonal.

Smudgescapes

Words and things. I dreamed about writing and writing, so effortlessly, so fluidly. And of a new mentor. And the school English teacher I owe my language to. Walking out of her class for the last time and saying goodbye and thanking her for everything. And my ex-roommate. And she was writing too. Handing me these reams and reams of stories that she'd written when she was in school.

Woke up with a start and was immediately seized with the desperation to remember everything. To write this all down, somehow. To not forget a thing, not a single word. Brushed teeth frantically, clinging on to every word in my head, every thought, every memory of that dream. Dreams. Fragments in my head. Precious to me for no conceivable, fathomable, sane reason.

Words, those fragments, still bursting from my head, in wild, screeching chaos. Not unsettling, not the slightest bit. Just mad, and churning. Quietly churning, whispering mad. The bite of fresh toothpaste in my mouth swirling and flavouring those drowsy thoughts. Those dreams. Those precious dreams.

That Which Shall Not Be Named

It's been four days since I last blogged, and I'm positively bursting into hives. This embarrassing revelation should really be making me blush, but instead I find my mind otherwise occupied. With trying to keep this post from being a... ahem... 'sorryexcuseforapost'. Or a 'terriblybadpost'. But, I'm afraid I'm being overly ambitious. Sigh.

Am now scrounging for a decent pic to put up here, if nothing else. This is ridiculous, clearly. Yet, as always, I persist.

Haven't found one yet. Geez!

Right then. Will instead write about how absolutely gorgeous it is to have a four-day week. Or about how, today, for the first time in ages, I actually felt useful at work. The last time this happened, I was mass-producing Excel sheets about data, that, in retrospect, was utterly useless. Yet, back then, that precious day, I felt terribly productive. Today, I poured over a survey map and divided about four thousand square kilometers into twelve bits. On paper, of course. With lines and everything! (I had to use the edge of my book, for want of a ruler. Such dynamic improvisation! Gasp! I must be promoted to manager this instant! *banging fist on table and looking sharp*) Yes, madly exciting, I know. Still, given the absolute rubbish that I usually do at work, today was enough to keep me on a nervous, jittery, frenzied, yet very functional high the entire day. Or maybe it was a Katatonia song. Hmmm.

Could also talk about Arundhati Roy's 'God of Small Things', except I don't feel qualified to, given that I've only read about fifteen pages so far. Still, fifteen very good pages so far. I nod in approval, yes I do.

Or Basketball Diaries, the movie. Just finished watching it a short while ago, and expectedly, continue to whole-heartedly admire Leo di Caprio's acting abilities. Gangs of New York, Catch Me If You Can, The Aviator, The Departed, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Blood Diamond, The Man in the Iron Mask, This Boy's Life. Yikes! Realised how many of his movies I've watched! But anyway, brilliantly made as this one is, it didn't punch me in the guts as much as Requiem For A Dream did. Maybe I've just watched too many junkie movies. The first one, Requiem, killed me, but since then, Ray, Walk The Line, Trainspotting, Blow, some of Lord of War... the junk angle somehow just doesn't pierce as much anymore. Maybe I'm getting colder. Things shock me less with each passing day.

Still have not found a post-able picture. This is downright appalling! Meanwhile, entertain yourself with this link, courtesy Skanda. Is very informative and interesting-like.
*nod*

Oh, Facebook is my latest distraction. It's thoroughly... distracting and pointless. I likey! It has also duly informed me that the drink I most resemble is a Cosmopolitan, and that I'm most like Hermione Granger. Go figure.

I often really have nothing better to do (<-- for all those thousands of people who visit my blog daily and haven't figured that out already. Hyuk!)

I also think Thom Yorke should be canonised. All hail St. Thom Yorke! Convent for boys! Heh.

Some days, I can amuse myself endlessly. Stop smugging, Dee. Which, by the way, according to Dictionary.com, means "to make smug or spruce". Er.

Oooooh, finally found one! Taken on my way to work, sometime last week. It's what I live for, these days. Walking to and from work. The best part of my day. The music, the deliciously crisp winter air, the scent of grass, leaves crunching chubbily under my shoes, blue skies, and my red nose. It really is nice to have a reason other than a steaming cup of coffee and a peanut-butter-jam sandwich for waking up in the morning.

A Warm Place

A lazy afternoon spent curled up into a ball in a toasty patch of sunlight, bent over a book on your lap, Einaudi in the background, accompanied (admittedly, without terribly much harmony) by random bird calls, and the faintest hint of a breeze. A sweatshirt that smells of fresh detergent and winter, its age betrayed by the dogged rim of lint all over, lint that takes to that patch of sunlight so easily. Backlit sweatshirt, deep blue, gold-rimmed. The shadow of your hair, and, inexplicably, of your glasses too, muting the white pages into a comfortable grey. Patchy grey, with bits of white-gold that persist through your inconsistent, straggly hair. Toes seek their share of warmth and wriggle sulkily. Tighter curl, nose-rub, sigh. Not quite the depth of winter, not quite invincible, still adrift, and yet, still, at peace. Reznor knew what he was talking about.

Autumn Blood

Manic Disguise

Post title courtesy Shayon, Varun and Ozzy. Without their permission, of course.